


A Fire Goes out

by JRW9699



Series: Dark Multiverse [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Study, Dark Multiverse, F/M, mentions of rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24234643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRW9699/pseuds/JRW9699
Summary: “How many times have we saved them? A hundred? A hundred hundred? Though the math may elude, the sentiment does not. We are the light in the dark. The shield from death. Hope in catastrophe. When they are threatened, we are there, and they name us saviours…until they call us threats. The same a hundred times. A hundred hundred times. We know that, and we are still there for them.”
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Oliver Queen, Oliver Queen/Kara Zor-El
Series: Dark Multiverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771420
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is just a little something that was rattling around in my brain while I was trying to work on my dissertation, and I figured it was better to just wrote it now and get it out the way so I can focus again.  
> For those of you who haven’t read the material this is obviously based on, I got this from Frank Miller’s works. The reason I ended up writing this is mostly because I’ve recently written an essay on TDKR for a university module on the US Empire. I may expand on this someday, who knows.  
> As always, you can get in touch with me over on Twitter @JRW9699

Forty years.

The world isn’t changing, the world has changed. The world that Oliver Queen walked into as The Green Arrow no longer exists. The ideals, the morals, the Earth that he fought and bled for no longer exists as anything but a memory, as a story parents tell their children about the age of heroes. It’s not a story they tell in reverence, the heroes that once have their lives to protect humanity are now talked about like the Boogeyman. A tale about aliens and gods and metahumans who sought to conquer the planet and make humanity bend the knee to them.

Forty years.

Kara doesn’t look at him differently. Goddess from another world who hasn’t aged a day in all that time, and she sill looks at him like he’s the man she met forty years ago. He’s old. Pushing 70. Years of fights, victories and defeats, have left his body a poor facsimile of the man she had married. Yet, she still looks at him like he’s the warrior he had been, the warrior that still shouts in his mind at night and demands to be let out.

Forty years.

It’s hardly half the lifespan of the average human anymore.

It didn’t happen overnight. It started slow, a few too many causalities when the forces of a planet bred for war attacked, a little too much property damage after some lunatic with a weapon that should never have been on planet Earth went on a killing spree. The outcry had always been there, those who feared them. It grew, slowly and surely, until one by one it forced them out.

J’onn J’onzz had been one of the first to go, silently slipping away and blending into the masses, he never told them why. Oliver always suspected he had seen something, that his psychic powers had helped him to read the changing tide of the human condition, and the he had left before things got bad. Oliver had never doubted that thing _would_ get bad. Someday.

Barry retired not long after. The government had found out who he was, had threatened Iris. Oliver had offered to fight, to help protect her. Barry had simply shaken his head and walked away.

The other’s followed. One by one. Until there was so few of them left. Then, John had told him he was leaving.

In a way, Oliver had seen it coming. John had become more than most of them. Had become a Green Lantern. He had responsibilities greater than just protecting Earth. In the end though, he was still just a solider, and a solider followed orders. Oliver had begged him to stay, had told him that they could win, but it hadn’t made a difference. John had found it amusing, in the end, had told him as much. How strange it was that Oliver. The mean one. The cruel one. The one with the darkest soul. How strange it was that Oliver, of all of them, would be the most hopeful.

He had kept fighting, so had Kara. Side by side, like they always had. Until it finally changed in a way that even he couldn’t plan for. 

Clark had sold them out. The government outed his identity to the world and promised to protect Lois, but only if he agreed to work for them. Kara didn’t blame him for taking the deal.

Oliver did.

They knew it wouldn’t take long for _them_ to send Clark after them. So, they ran. They hid. Spent years fighting from the shadows, Kara finally agreeing to do things his way.

It’s been twenty five years since, in the eyes of those who live above, Oliver and Kara Queen died. The tyrants couldn’t find them. They strike like lightning and disappear into the night. They’ve been very patient. Oliver trained his students and Kara honed her skills. They’ve waited. Waited and watched the world go right to hell.

They tried to fight loud once, and change things for good.

Three years ago, Lex Luthor, a toad of a man, croaked that he knew what was best for humanity, and nearly bested humanity’s best.

Nearly.

Oliver never recovered after that.

Kara doesn’t understand. And truth be told, Oliver wasn’t helping her to. It’s hard for him to say _“I’ve lost a step”_ or _“I’m a liability”._ So he tells her “ _My dear, the fire went out”_. She refuses to believe that, and again – truth, she’s **_right_**. The fire is there, but the body is kindling. Oliver has lost more than just a step – forty years of taking beating after beating – he can hardly walk. He knows he’s more than just a liability, he’s a noose.

He knows that if they went out on patrol together he’d get her killed, because she’d be more concerned with worrying about him than the mission. That’s hard to admit for a man like Oliver.

So instead, a fire goes out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've officially decided to continue this because my brain couldn't let it go.  
> Full disclosure, this story is now going down a full Dark Multiverse path and well...I'm going to be taking a close look at where out favourite characters might have ended up if their greatest fears came to pass. This could fully be the start of a whole Dark Multiverse inspired short-stories (I can't imagine any of them being more than a few thousand words), but we'll just have to see.  
> If you plan to keep reading, you'd better have a strong stomach.

It started, Oliver supposes, with him.

Clark was the first of course. He _is_ Superman afterall. But until Over, Clark had been the only one. The Kryptonian did a good enough job. He stood for something that Oliver had always known he never would. The whole world looked up to him, still does. He’s supposed to be the best of them. Their most incorruptible shinning light.

Oliver changed the rulebook. For fifteen years Superman had protected the Earth alone. Had shown the people a hero from another world dedicated to the values of the world that adopted him. Truth, Justice, and The American Way. Oliver stood for something else. When Green Arrow showed up in the shadows of Star City the people of the world realised something. That they were afraid.

They’re afraid. And they will be, until they are what they _are_ most afraid of…dead. Oliver would say, through lips split and swollen, that fear was his bread and butter. Fear. The strongest, _purest_ , primal motivation there is. Fear. His lieutenant. His invisible friend.

Years later, Superman would blame him. After the mobs rose against them, when millions across the globe lobbied governments to banish them, after Oliver had married Superman’s cousin. _“You act like a criminal”_. Oliver had laughed at that, a deep, twisted laugh that surprised even him. _“We are criminals, Clark”,_ he always used his human name despite what Kara insisted, _“We’ve always been criminals. We **have** to be criminals”._ A truth that so few of them were willing to accept. Kara would, eventually, when they were the only ones left. The others never could see it. Even John, ever the soldier, saw a greater purpose even before he got the Power Ring.

The world treated Oliver differently though, because he didn’t pretend the same way that the others did. While Barry and Clark and Kara played with gloves on, treated the corrupt institutions of government as though they could be trusted, Oliver did the world the courtesy of treating it like it was…broken. That was the problem with doing what he did. Oliver was always the one who could operate in the dark places where the others couldn’t. It made him see things differently.

He hadn’t been the Green Arrow for two years when the first civilian lobby was made against him. The _Council of Mothers_ petitioned the Mayor of Star City to issue a warrant for his arrest, citing him as a harmful influence on the children of the city. Next it was the _Victims Rights Task Force_ , demanding justice for the murders, rapists, and thieves that Green Arrow had “illegally” harmed. As he always did, Oliver pushed forward.

He didn’t see that he would be the first nail in a coffin that would bring them all down.

But the human spirt is indomitable. Even there, in the rain-soaked, blood-caked canyons of Star City. Even in Star City, there was youthful joy. Youthful hope needing only the spark of inspiration, to give it purpose.

Enter Sara Lance, age fifteen.

Human nature is indomitable. But life is complex. Once upon a time, her older sister had dated Oliver Queen. Before even that, their mother was one of the few natural born meta-humans before the STAR Labs particle accelerator exploded. Sara Lance was born with a gift, and that spark was ignited the day she heard her father talk about the archer on the streets of Star City fighting to make a difference.

Her father. Quentin Lance. Captain, Star City Police. Quentin Lance. Detective. Never have a detective for a father. Not unless you’re really good at bullshitting him. And always throw in a smile when bullshitting him. Two lessons that Sara Lance learnt very quickly.

Youth.

Hope.

Inspiration.

Her father would have killed her if he had ever found out.

Purpose...

...And mischief.

She put on a pair of fishnets, a leather bodysuit, and a mask. She thought between that and her canary cry that she could be like _him_. And worse, Oliver had never stopped her. He never encouraged her, but he never once told her _no_. Even though he knew who she was. For over a year Black Canary was spotted, on and off, by Green Arrow’s side. She racked up almost a long a rap sheet as him. Assault. Battery. Destruction of public property. Incitement to riot. Accessory to murder.

Then she made a mistake. Tried to break up a riot without support. And Captain Quentin Lance found his sixteen year old daughter in an alley in Star City with two bullet holes in her chest and…he never could think about the rest.

When they added child endangerment to Green Arrow’s list of charges, Oliver lost the only cop he could trust.

So, when Clark blamed Oliver. He wasn’t entirely wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

He met Kara Zor-El five years after he returned from Lian Yu.

He’d known who Superman was long before that. After this return it was the first thing that he dedicated resources to figuring out. With an objective eye and enough of Queen Consolidated’s money, it took him less than a month to deduce who Clark Kent really was. Oliver never did understand how Lex Luthor took so long to find that out.

So, when Supergirl turned up in National City and Cat Grant revealed she was Superman’s cousin, it didn’t take him long to find Kara Danvers.

By the time he and Supergirl finally met, thanks to Barry summoning aliens to Earth, Clark already loathed him. It had been a combination of things that had fuelled Clark’s distaste of him. They’d met a few times, Superman decided to track Green Arrow down not long after the death of Sara Lance. He’d told Oliver quite bluntly what he thought of his tactics, that he made them all look like monsters to the public at large. That Sara’s death would make _them_ look for an excuse to destroy them. Oliver had ignored him and told the Boy Scout to fly off back to Metropolis with a thinly veiled threat about the little green rock he kept in a pouch on his thigh.

Not long after that, they sent Green Lantern to talk to him.

John Diggle.

Green Lantern.

The ring he wears on his finger is the most powerful weapon in the universe. If he thinks something up, it just plain appears. That makes him the Milky Ways top cop. Even if he had since left Earth, Oliver was sure Diggle still kept an eye on things.

The first time they met was after a group of supers decided that Green Arrow was too much of a risk. Lantern fought to give the archer a chance to prove that he could play well with others, and they agreed to let him talk. Oliver had found it funny back then, the little joy luck club that they were putting together. There were only four of them in the beginning: the last boy scout of a blown up planet, a corrupt cop turned shape changer, the human lightning bolt who’s mouth was even faster than his feet, and the master of the giant green egg beater – when he wasn’t plagued by a certain primary colour.

They called themselves The Justice League.

When Lantern told him that, Oliver felt a chuckle start in his gut, all black and hard and sharp as an industrial diamond. The chuckle cut up through his throat and came out as a laugh that scared even him. It was hard for him to keep his voice level as he told Diggle that he had no intention of joining their club. Oliver pissed Lantern off even more when he swiped that ring off his finger because he wasn’t concentrating enough.

He earned a right hook for that. Ring or not, the man had arms the size of bowling balls.

It hurt.

They finally talked him around when the world was ending. Well, _they_ might not be right. It was _her_. When Barry Aleen showed up in The Foundry and sped him away to the disused hanger the group of heroes was using to plan their war against a race of aliens dedicated to wiping out humanity, Oliver met Supergirl. He had thought after the island, he would stop getting turned around by a pretty face, that he was above thinking with his hormones. Maybe at first he was distracted because she was about the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen. And sure, part of the reason he decided to pursue her was because he saw the look of righteous fury on Clark’s face when he caught Oliver eyeing up Supergirl. But it didn’t take him long to fall in love with her.

She had a lightness that infected even his dark soul. Unlike the others, she wasn’t afraid on him, or mistrustful of him. The things that Clark loathed him for, she sought to help him heal from. Where the other heroes saw a man who would only ever lie in the dark, Kara saw a soul that she could help bring back to the light. He never did truly change, but she helped him in a way he never thought he was deserving of. The lobbies and threats against Green Arrow never really went away, but they lessened as his tactics became less violent and brutalising.

The others slowly came around to him too. Barry Allen asked for guidance, saw value in the expertise of a human who knew the life they lived. Ralph Dibney found in him a partner to drink with on the long nights when things didn’t go the way they hoped. John Diggle became a true friend. Clark still loathed him, the fact that Oliver began dating his cousin did little to change his opinions.

Kara never cared for her cousin’s approval. In fact, it almost seemed to fuel her passion for their relationship.

Whenever Oliver felt unsure of himself, he found his way into her arms.

They were married in less than a year.

In the beginning, they both expected that Green Arrow and Supergirl being seen together would make his image brighter, in fact it made hers darker. But it never changed the way they felt about each other.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's your usual reminder to go follow me on Twitter @JRW9699

It ended for Kara and Oliver on a night not unlike any other.

Some nights Oliver would wonder why he didn’t sleep. Kara would tell him he was an addict, that even he needed time out of the tights. As he always did Oliver would laugh and tell her that he believed with all his heart in what they were doing. And as she always did, Kara would take his hand, plat a kiss on his lips, and tell him he was in denial. The same over and over again.

The night it all ended was different. It was the kind of night that Green Arrow as born for. He hadn’t slept in days, but he couldn’t get tired no matter how hard he’d tried. Even in his forties there were some nights where his fire couldn’t be contained. The nights were the wind off the river ripped across the rooftops of Star City, all cold as hell. The nights where arctic rain battered down from the sky.

A perfect night.

A hunter’s night.

Kara found him in an alley, systematically breaking the ribs of a streak of slime who had been trying to rape a teenage girl. After Sara he tended to go overboard on that particular class of criminal. Usually when he went overboard on a crook Kara stopped him, but she never stopped him with _them_.

They deserved it.

She understood that.

Which was why, when she caught his wrist before he could bring his bow down to shatter the rapist’s jaw, he knew something was wrong. Supergirl sped the teenager away to the nearest police station and then ferried Oliver back to their bunker under the Queen Estate. She told him about the deal Clark had been offered, that Superman’s identity had been outed to the world, and Oliver had laughed.

He had seen it coming years before. Clark had never been subtle. It had taken Oliver a few weeks to deduce Clark’s identity with just the resources of his family’s company at his disposal. He had always expected that the American Government, with its illegal tracking of every civilian, satellites and cameras and wiretaps pointed at anyone they found interesting enough to warrant even the slightest bit of attention just so that a few corrupt egomaniacs could hold onto power, they could find out who Superman was too. If they wanted it.

Turns out they did.

And, Oliver being Oliver, had planned for it.

He and Kara had been fighting on their own for near three years, the last of the heroes. All the time Oliver had watched the world begin to hate them more and more for not allowing themselves to be brushed away like the others. He had seen it then, the inevitability that Clark would turn against them in the end.

Kara had never wanted to see it, but she wasn’t like Oliver. Despite everything, Kara wanted to believe that she and her cousin were alike in all ways. She might have lived on Earth longer than she ever had on Krypton, but Kara Zor-El never shared Clark’s delusions of humanity. But Clark would almost always talk her around to seeing this his way, he was good at that. He always knew just what to say.

“Yes” – he always said yes to anyone with a badge or a flag.

It didn’t surprise Oliver that Clark sold them out in the end. Gave _them_ the power that should have belonged to the people. They could have changed the world, they almost did. But the world couldn’t accept them. Oliver and Kara had become little more than a political liability to corrupt tyrants. And Clark was a joke.

So, he had planned.

By the time Clark showed up to take them in, Oliver and Kara were long gone from Queen Mansion.

The Kryptonian landed outside the doors to the mansion the day after he became a tyrant’s stooge. The ancient moor trembled beneath his feet. Deep underground, the computers that had held every precious secret of Oliver's crusade burst and burnt. The central mass of the Queen Mansion shuddered as if alive, then vanished in in a flash as bright as the sun.

Clark had watched it all unfold in front of his eyes and not had a clue what had happened.

Oliver had Kara use her heat vision to charge an incendiary device powerful enough to destroy the mansion. Any forensic expert looking into the explosion would have concluded that the mansion was destroyed and it’s two occupants killed by a Kryptonian’s heat vision, and with Supergirl “dead” Clark would have been the only possible culprit.

Oliver had never expected that to make any different to the bastards who pulled Clark’s strings, but it felt good that the world would blame him nonetheless.

The load of Kryptonite napalm that had burst free in the secondary explosion Oliver hadn’t told Kara about. The synthesised compound wasn’t enough to kill Clark, Oliver had designed it that way. It still hurt him though and Oliver took a morbid comfort in that knowledge.

Oliver and Kara had stolen away while Clark was coughing through a green mist. They disappeared into the endless caves, far past the burnt remnants of two crimefighters whose time had passed.

The world had changed, and they had decided to change with it.


	5. Chapter 5

_Truth To Power_

_James Olsen_

_There’s this little saloon you’ll find up and running and packed with patrons before most of us are ready for our morning coffee._

_The joint’s two subway levels beneath the streets of downtown National City._

_Step out at the Plastino stop on the south-bound side, take two lefts, walk maybe fifteen feet and you’re right on top of it._

_But you could just as easily walk right past it and never know its there._

_There’s no sign up. Not even a door. Just a dark hallway that looks like a good place for a murder._

_Take a breath. Follow the cigarette stink and the bluesy jukebox sounds inside._

_It’s a tolerable little gin mill. Get there before the morning rush, and you’re likely to find a stool._

_Your first clue that there’s something wrong about the place is the bartender. You’ll never forget his face. He’s a hulk of a guy who’s seen way too much. A broken man with laser red eyes. His forehead’s a fractured cantilever, and avalanche waiting to happen. His skin’s gone a little grey from it’s natural chartreuse._

_He’s got a voice like Coke bottles getting ground up under a door._

_His name is Jones._

_He says he’s from Mars._

_And nobody tells him he’s nuts, not one of these sad old barflies. It’s not that they’re scared of him either._

_They’ve seen and done things that are supposed to be impossible._

_They’re not the kind to out and out brag about being able to bench-press cars or run faster than a speeding bullet or jump into the air and stay there. Nah. Not these guys._

_These guys, they’ve got nothing to prove. Been there. Done that._

_Except for old “Snapper” always at the same stool at the end, living up to his nickname, snapping his fingers in time to the music and rattling on and on and on about mighty powers, globe-spanning adventures, nefarious world conquerors, you name it._

_He never stops snapping his damn fingers. And he never stops sucking back the sauce and jabbering about the old days. The glory days._

_The “Golden Age” he calls it._

_The age of heroes._

_And all the other old farts, they grunt and nod and grumble at each other, swapping old jokes they’ve swapped a thousand times. Even fat, beet-red old Diaz chips out a curse or two before bursting into tears._

_Then they get talking. And if you’ve got a half a brain, you’ll listen._

_They talk about amazing adventures, sounding like a bunch of retired car mechanics the whole time._

_They talk about a Girl of Steel. A Scarlett Speedster._

_But they never talk about the mean one. The cruel one. The one who couldn’t fly or bend metal with his bare hands. The one who scared the crap out of everybody and laughed at all of the rest of us for being the envious cowards we were._

_No, they never talk about him. Say his name and watch Dibny’s face sag so bad his jaw hits the bar._

_Not a man among them wants to hear about Oliver Queen._

_Was he quietly assassinated? Or did he just decide we weren’t worth the grief?_

_The question hangs in the air for a moment or two, then Jones springs for a round for everybody and himself._

_They get talking again. About the old days. The glory days._

_They remember._

_They were right there. In the thick of it._

_Back then._

_It wasn’t so long ago._

_We had heroes._


End file.
